It was not at herself she gazed, but the ever-changing gleam of the shells was irresistible.

How well she remembered that evening when in the moonlight under the elder tree at Garthowen, Gethin had held them out to her, with a dawning love in his eyes, and her heart had bounded towards him with that strong impulse, which alas! she now knew was love!--love that permeated her whole being, that drew her thoughts away on the wings of the wind, over the restless sea, away, away, to distant lands and foreign ports.
Where did he roam?
What foreign shores did his footsteps tread?
In what strange lands was he wandering?
far from his home, far from the hearts that loved him and longed for his return! The swallows flew in fluttering companies over the moor, beginning to congregate for their departure across the seas.

Oh! that she could borrow their wings, and fly with them across that sad dividing ocean, and, finding Gethin, could flutter down to him and shelter on his breast, and twitter to him such a song of love and home that he should understand and turn his steps once more towards the old country! Will never troubled her now, never asked her to meet him behind the broom bushes.

He had ceased to love her, she knew, and although he had never freed her from her promise, Morva had too much common sense to feel bound for ever to a man who had so evidently forgotten her.

If sometimes the meanness and selfishness of his conduct dawned upon her mind, the feeling was instantly repressed, and as far as possible banished, in obedience to the instinct of loyalty to Garthowen, which was so strong a trait in her character.
She turned again to look at her necklace in the pool, and caught sight of a speck of vivid scarlet on the brow of the hill--another and another.